What is I-O?

Industrial-organizational (I-O) psychology is the scientific study of working and the application of that science to workplace issues facing individuals, teams, and organizations.
The scientific method is applied to investigate issues of critical relevance to individuals, businesses, and society.

The Alliance for Organizational Psychology (AOP) was formed in 2009 to help its member organizations support and advance the science and practice of I-O psychology worldwide and to expand I-O’s application and contribution to society to improve the quality of working life.

In support of the organization’s key initiatives, the AOP will present three sessions at the International Congress of Applied Psychology (ICAP) In Montreal, Quebec, Canada, June 26-30. If you were at the recent SIOP conference in Chicago, you may have attended one of the three Alliance Special Sessions there.

The recent SIOP sessions covered international assessment and high performance work practices, and an examination of the science and practice implications of active aging at work.

There’s no immediately apparent connection, but as Lynda Zugec, managing director of The Workforce Consultants and a member of the AOP committees points out, “AOP reviews the needs of member associations and tailors these sessions to those needs. Session attendees are encouraged to connect with session speakers to ask questions, explore and discover differences across countries, and potentially become involved on joint initiatives moving forward.”

AOP membership currently comprises four organizations. Representatives of the AOP’s three founding organizations, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP), the European Association for Work and Organizational Psychology (EAWOP), and the Organizational Psychology Division of the International Association for Applied Psychology (IAAP-Division 1), began negotiating the structure and purpose of the organization in 2008.

The first meeting of the governing body was held in November 2011, and the first AOP conference presentations were at SIOP San Diego in 2012. The Canadian Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (CSIOP) signed on in 2016, during Zugec’s CSIOP presidency.

SIOP’s 2017 AOP representatives explained in an article for The Industrial-Organizational Psychologist that“AOP does not seek to duplicate its member societies’ activities but instead to increase the visibility of I-O around the world and to enhance, extend, and facilitate exchanges between these associations and their members.” Zugec reminds the larger I-O community that the AOP actively encourages practitioner involvement.

Presence at member societies’ conferences is one way AOP facilitates exchange among members. Julie McCarthy, a professor of Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, said, “AOP conference sessions—whether at SIOP or IAAP or EAWOP—are selected and developed to focus on international issues and feature panels of international experts.”

Zugec added that the conference sessions “allow members of the international work and organizational psychology community to engage more directly and concretely with each other. It also allows for association members to regularly connect for a common and unified purpose. It reminds us that we are part of a larger community.”

A quadrennial meeting cohosted in 2018 by IAAP and the Canadian Psychological Association, the International Congress of Applied Psychology focuses on advances in the field and on demonstrating the societal significance of the field. Learn more about the ICAP conferencehere.

New officers will succeed current officers Franco Fraccaroli, Rosalind Searle, and Donald Truxillo, who respectively serve as president, secretary general, and treasurer, until the 2018 International Congress of Applied Psychology. The new officers include Gudela Grote (president), Steven Rogelberg (secretary general), Mark L. Poteet (treasurer), and Bonnie Cheng (communications)

AOP’s other key initiatives, as outlined in the TIP articles, include the support of small group meetings and local I-O groups, as well as the creation of white papers on internationally important topics. Learn more about the founding and some of the work of the AOP in these SIOP publications. Visit the AOP website for more information.